ARCHERY EQUIPMENTS

ACCESSORIES USED IN ARCHERY

Modern archery equipment is the evolution of the bows and arrows used by cultures around the world for millennia. World Archery recognises a number of equipment disciplines, or bowstyles, including the recurve bow, which is used in the Olympics, and the compound bow.

• a.Bowstyles
• b.Arrows
• c.Accessories
• 
  

1.BOWSTYLES

World Archery recognises official competition categories for archers using the recurve bow and compound bow for use at World Archery Championships and on the Hyundai Archery World Cup circuit.

Barebow, longbow, traditional bow and instinctive bowstyles are recognised for other world archery championships, while variations on these bows are permitted under the rules for flight archery. 

• a.Recurve
• b.Compound
• 
  

2.ARROWS

Modern competition arrows are usually made of carbon or aluminium or a combination of both, which provides better aerodynamic and projectile qualities than the historical wooden arrow. Travelling at speeds in the region of 200m/s, arrows are efficient and highly-accurately made instruments – reused time and time again in competition.

The components of an arrow include the point, which is the metal tip at the front of the arrow that pierces the target, the shaft or body of the arrow, fletching and nock. Fletchings, or vanes, are the plastic or synthetic feathers that stabilise an arrow in flight, while the nock is a small plastic U-shaped component that clips to the bowstring between the nocking points.

3.ACCESSORIES

Stabilisers are a rod and weight system mounted to the bow to balance it during aim and absorb vibration during release.

A sight is a device mounted onto the bow with which the archer aims. It has a block that is moveable up-and-down and left-to-right. An archer using a compound bow may have a magnifying lens and levelling bubble, but an archer using a recurve bow may have neither.

Recurve archers use a leather tab to protect their fingers from the bowstring when drawing the bow. Used with compound bows release aids are mechanical, hand-held devices that draw and release the bowstring, attaching via a D-loop, which minimise inconsistencies.

Archers tie a quiver around their waist to hold their arrows.

Armguards protect the arm from the string when an arrow is released; they are made of plastic (or leather) and are worn on the inside of the forearm. A chestguard covers the side of the archer’s chest closest to the bow, keeping clothes out of the path of the bowstring.

Additional accessories include plunger buttons, rests, dampers, sight pins, peepsights and finger slings.